Currently, the brcm80211 driver in AUR and the 2.6.37 kernel have a particularly crippling bug on multicore systems. This is fixed in 2.6.38-rc3 - the driver works great and is much faster (both in terms of initial connection and transfer rates; YMMV).

UPDATE: As of Kernel 2.6.39 brcm80211 was renamed to brcmsmac, that should not give you any problems, BUT when using Kernel 3.0 you need to add brcmsmac to your modules array in /etc/rc.conf, because of some bug in which the wireless interface doesnt show up, that should solve it.

FN+F3 controls the internal radio on the wireless internal adapter - this allows you to turn it off/on.

Currently, this device does NOT support monitor mode, nor packet injection =(

Above in the rc.conf NETWORKING section, I am not using eth1 (actually commented out), as I like using wlan0 for wireless interface, its just my preference. I am using the following config taken from Broadcom_BCM4312Interfaces swapped every time section, namely to create my wlan0 interface, and to ensure eth0 and my wireless interface don't get swapped around ::

Create a file called /etc/udev/rules.d/10-network.rules and bind the MAC address of each of your cards to a certain interface name

ACPI_CALL

ACPI_CALL is a kernel module that enables you to call parameterless ACPI methods by writing the method name to /proc/acpi/call, e.g. to turn off the discrete graphics card in a dual graphics environment. acpi_call works on the Alienware M11x R1 for disabling the discrete video card + powering it down successfully. Make sure you boot with BIOS set to switchable' ::

echo '\_SB.PCI0.P0P2.PEGP._OFF' to (the now existing since acpi_call was loaded) /proc/acpi/call

check the current battery mW usage again to see that it dropped (not necessary)

both #2 and #4 as noted are not necessary, they just demonstrate that the battery usage is dropping as long as you do them in the order listed here.

VGA_SWITCHEROO

Currently, Alienware M11x R1 owners are unable to use this method - hopefully this situation will change in the near future (fingers crossed), for now you need to manually reboot and make the switch in BIOS (swtichable and discrete in the GRAPHICS setup).

/etc/rc.d/detecgtgpu

To cope with switching between the 2 video cards within Archlinux itself (having multiple video drivers on the same arch install) I have been using a implementation of the detectgpu script pioneered by ALLurGroceries, but decidedly more arch-style like our french brethren with some americanfolk added I came up with this (UPDATED - added acpi_call functionality so that if booting into onboard/intel, this will power off the NVIDIA card by at boot to save precious battery -- since we cant even switch to NVIDIA yet while booted with onboard/intel) ::

NOTE: you need to create 2 files for this to work, /etc/X11/xorg.nvidia.conf and /etc/X11/xorg.intel.conf (obviously one for INTEL, and one for NVIDIA) the script detectgpu will create a symlink /etc/X11/xorg.conf linking to the valid xorg.$ACTIVE_VIDEO_CARD.conf file, so Xorg will start properly.

Make sure that script /etc/rc.d/detectgpu script is executable

chmod +x /etc/rc.d/detectgpu

Lastly, update /etc/rc.conf with the following added to your DAEMONS=() section (if using the DAEMON config from above, this will already be there):

detectgpu

Use 'nvidia-settings' to configure the video card, and multiple screens if using the discrete/NVIDIA card.

backlight brightness

When booting into arch linux using NVIDIA/discrete video card just change brightness using the FUNCTION+F4 = brightness up, and FUNCTION+F5 = brightness down - also 'nvidia-settings' should allow brightness settings changes too.

AlienFX - lighting and colors

AlienFX description quoting from the author's page "AlienFX Lite is a simple cross-platform program to create profiles and set the AlienFX lightning to the set colors. This application was done for the Allpowerfull M15x and only tested on this machine. It should also work on the M17x. The application will most likely accept the Area 51 m15x but it was untested. The current supported platforms are:
Linux (32 bit), Linux(64 bit), Mac OS X(UNTESTED), Windows 7(64 bit), Windows 7 (32 bit), Windows Vista (32bit), Windows Vista 64bit, Windows XP"

fbsplash + fbcondecor on the M11x

a quick summary: quote, "Fbsplash (formerly gensplash) is a userspace implementation of a splash screen for Linux systems. It provides a graphical environment during system boot using the Linux framebuffer layer. .... If you have a kernel that supports Fbcondecor, you can get nice graphical console backgrounds beside the splash screen. Just search the AUR for fbcondecor" unquote.

fbcondecor tailored for m11x

as I posted here, I'm using the following configuration on my m11x as an example (posted beneath). when it comes time to boot your system, choose whatever in BIOS [discrete/internal], then once @ the GRUB boot menu, select "Arch64 linux (intel -fbcondecor)" for the internal/intel, and "Arch64 Linux (nvidia -fbcondecor)" for the discrete/NVIDIA.